Partnership Redwood City

Partnership Redwood City is a unique program that provides community benefits through a wide range of City partnerships. Through ongoing collaboration with businesses, community groups, residents, property owners, and developers, this program will deliver benefits such as affordable housing, improved schools, parks, transportation systems, programs for the arts, and support for special programs and events. These partnerships ensure that all community members will benefit from new development and investment in Redwood City.

For more information about the Partnership Redwood City Program, contact Catherine Ralston, Economic Development Manager at 650-780-7204 or cralston@redwoodcity.org.

Community Fund

During the process of creating the Partnership Redwood City program, various programs and needs were identified that needed support but did not fall within an impact fee or “onsite community improvement” framework. The Council saw the opportunity to fund these programs via Partnership Redwood City.

To date, six developments have contributed to the Community Fund, paid in-lieu fees or provided other monetary contributions directly to local non-profit organizations totaling more than $27,350,000 through the Partnership Redwood City Program. The Community Fund has received $4 million dollars to date. Later this year, the City Council will establish policies and guidelines for the distribution of the funds in the Community Fund.

Affordable Housing

Affordable Housing Impact Fees are intended to offset the future demands that new residential and commercial development place on affordable housing. Money collected goes towards providing affordable housing, generally in partnership with housing nonprofits. Although the City is prohibited from requiring onsite affordable (inclusionary) housing in most cases, developers may opt to provide onsite affordable housing instead of paying the fee.

Following an extensive nexus study process done in conjunction with other San Mateo County cities, the City Council adopted updated affordable housing fees in December 2015. By the close of this calendar year, the City is expected to receive approximately 4 million in affordable housing fees and other development related housing contributions. Perhaps more importantly, two recently approved projects have opted to place affordable onsite. One of these projects is proposing 35 units affordable at the “low-income” level (in addition to a 1.2 million fee), and the other project is proposing 50 affordable units at the “very-low” level. For more information about the affordable housing efforts the city is working on, click here.

Public Art

In June 2016, the City Council adopted the Percent for Art fee which requires new commercial buildings over 50,000 square feet to contribute 1% of the construction value to the Public Art fund or provide art equal in value to the 1% on site. The Ordinance also established a City policy of setting aside one percent of the annual Capital Outlay Fund to be contributed to the Art in Public Places Fund. Although no projects have been subject to the fee to date, there are projects in the planning pipeline which would have to pay this fee if approved. For more information about current and future art projects in Redwood City, click here.

Transportation & Parking

This fee addresses traffic impacts associated with new development. Transportation Impact Fees may be used for the construction of improvements and traffic reduction measures, including road construction, road improvements, pedestrian, and bicycle and transit improvements. They cannot be used for routine maintenance. The fees were updated in July 2015. Current transportation project information can be found here.

Park Impact Fee

This fee helps to pay for new parks and park facilities throughout the City in recognition of demands new development places on existing parks. The current fee only applies to residential development. Modifications to apply the fee to commercial development are currently being studied and will be brought before the Council before the end of the year. Current Park improvements and project information can be found here.

History of Partnership Redwood City

From 2014 through 2015, the community participated in a series of workshops, hearings, and online forums. These discussions identified and prioritized the types of amenities and benefits they wanted to see in the community.

On February 17, 2015, the City Council adopted the program, which can be modified and adjusted in the future to meet changing community priories.